by Marian Tee
For so long, the memories of Karla had been like a festering wound that didn’t heal – one Nick wasn’t even sure he wanted to heal. But with Lilac, the wound had stopped aching.
For the first time in years, Nick felt…free.
He knew Lilac wasn’t Karla, knew Lilac wasn’t better or worse than his ex. But he also knew Lilac was different. Lilac was special – a person he wouldn’t want to give up.
When they reached her home and Nick got out of the car to open the door for her, Lilac’s heart started beating madly. Shameful as it was to admit, Lilac was wondering if Nick Christakos would kiss her goodbye. The silly thought was more than enough to make Lilac sigh and mentally berate herself: friends did not kiss each other, you ninny!
Nick assisted Lilac out of the car, and then they were standing next to each other. Taking a deep calming breath because she so didn’t want to slip up, Lilac said very carefully, “Thank you…for driving me home.” She turned towards the house and slowly started to walk towards it.
Nick’s phone rang as he continued to gaze at Lilac’s retreating form, even though he knew she wasn’t the type to look back.
“Nick? You there?”
“Yes.” It took him more seconds than usual to answer.
“You sound weird, brother. What the hell are you doing?”
“Just drove a girl home.”
Jason whistled. “You personally drove her home? She must be good---”
“Lilac’s not like that,” he said sharply before he could stop himself.
“What do you mean she’s not like that?”
He kept silent.
After a beat, Jason said incredulously, “You drove a girl home even though nothing happened between you?” The grin in his brother’s voice was unmistakable.
Nick rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.”
“I want to meet her---”
“Not on your life.”
“Why not? Scared that she’ll like me more?”
He tried to picture Jason with Lilac, and jealousy struck him. “Fuck you again.”
Jason chuckled. “Ah, brother, you’re just making me want to see her more---”
“If you’re just going to waste my fucking time---”
“Wait!” All humor fled Jason’s voice. “I have something to tell you.”
Nick tensed. “What is it?”
“They’ve found Beatrice.”
****
As far back as Nick could remember, Beatrice Crichton had loved living the high life, partying and drinking until dawn, with the occasional drug-and-sex weekend every time Aristos Christakos was away on a business trip.
Dressed in an obviously expensive wraparound dress and stilettos, her hands weighed down by costume jewelry, their father’s widow looked extremely out of place in the almost-bare interrogation room.
Once, she had been Ariston’s blushing bride, a trophy wife whose only claim to fame was her supposed skills between the sheets, a fact that most millionaires in Greece could attest to. Now, she was nothing but a shadow of her former self, a socialite turned convicted criminal who looked every bit of her thirty-three years and then some.
Her expertly applied make up was unable to hide the ravaging effects of the kind of lifestyle she was known to pursue. Dark bags circled her eyes, her skin was sallow, and she was far too thin to be healthy.
Behind the two-way mirror, the FBI agent assigned to their case asked quietly, “I would need your official confirmation that it’s Beatrice Crichton-Christakos before I let you in to speak with her.”
“It’s our father’s whore,” Jason answered grimly. “No mistake about it.”
****
When Nick and Jason Christakos walked into the interrogation room, Beatrice straightened on her seat, a hard defiant look entering her dark eyes. She hated them for far too many reasons, but most of all for being a constant reminder of her greatest weakness, one she couldn’t get rid of – no matter what.
They were beyond beautiful, every inch of their sculpted bodies perfectly displayed by the custom-made Italian suits they wore. They personified the old rich, their breeding impeccable, and they had always been courteously unapologetic about it.
Every word, every action, everything the Christakos brothers did delivered a clear and concise message: we were born billionaires so deal with it…or fuck off.
Beatrice’s dumbest mistake - she had ignored the message and fucked one of them instead.
Even now, seeing the way the two tall dark-haired brothers stood side by side like Greek gods about to dispense a death sentence, Beatrice wasn’t sure she would not commit the same sin again if she had a chance to rewrite the past.
A woman could have an orgasm just looking at them – Beatrice knew it for a fact since she had done so plenty of times, in the years past, stroking herself to a climax whenever she had caught sight of them playing in the swimming pool from her bedroom window.
And they had only been twelve then---
“The years have not been kind to you, Beatrice.”
Nick’s scathing words pushed the past away, and Beatrice returned his contemptuous smile with one of her own. She said with mocking sweetness, “My beautiful stepsons. Did you miss me?”
Nick and Jason’s faces remained implacable, an unconsciously mutual decision to intimidate the woman who had enjoyed making their lives hell when they were young and helpless.
The intimidation worked, Beatrice’s throat bobbing even though a scornful smile remained on her lips.
Her bright red lips reminded Nick of a piranha’s blood-stained jaws. It disgusted him, a reaction he didn’t bother hiding.
The contempt in the brothers’ eyes made Beatrice stiffen, but when she spoke there was nothing but seduction in her voice as she turned to Jason. “I see you still can’t take your eyes off me, darling. It will surely make your dear Papa turn over in his grave---”
“Shut up, Beatrice,” Jason hissed.
Beatrice made her eyes go wide. “I’m not saying anything untrue---”
In a blink of an eye, Nick was on the other side of the table, his fists slamming on the desk. Beatrice scrambled away in fear, her back hitting the wall.
Nick’s tone was murderously quiet when he spoke. “One more word and we’ll call your bluff. We’re adults now, you fucking bitch, and if you want to be branded as a pedophile nymphomaniac then go ahead – talk.”
Whitening with helpless rage at the unexpected threat, Beatrice could only glare with a mixture of fear and malevolence as she snapped, “If it’s the money you’re after, you know I’ve already spent---”
Nick dismissed her words with a hard slash of his hand in the air.
Beatrice shut up. He was different now, she realized. Harder than he had always been, the cruelty in his gaze making her shudder with a mixture of desire and terror. The Christakos brothers had been her Achilles’ heel, and that apparently would never change.
Jason said coldly, “You were there when my brother was attacked and before you left, you hinted---”
Beatrice started to laugh. “That’s why you tracked me down?” Her laughter rang out, tainting the air. “I’ll tell you what, my beautiful stepsons. I’ll give all the information I have if you agree to drop the charges and send me off with ten million dollars.” She glanced at Jason, wetting her lips. “But I could be persuaded to another alternative---”
This time, no one was able to stop Nick from trying to strangle her.
Third Encounter
Pens dropped, papers shuffled, camera phones clicked, and chairs scraped against the floor. The sound of the entire library coming to a standstill around Lilac was starting to become familiar, a fact of life since her existence became intertwined with Nick Christakos’.
“Lilac.” The rare unsteady note in Nick’s unusually loud voice made Lilac look up in confusion. She couldn’t understand why he was courting everyone’s attention in such a way. But the questions died in her throat when she saw his face.
&nb
sp; He was still gorgeous and sexy, still elegantly dressed in a way that no other MBA student could aspire to match. He was every inch the arrogant and powerful billionaire he was, but he was not…all right.
Nick waited for Lilac to speak but she did not, instead choosing to quickly and efficiently gather her things and putting them back into her bag. She wore a large sweater this time around, paired with an even larger-than-life skirt. It was as if every day Lilac was aiming to win first place in a reality show that was named something like The Ugliest Dresser.
Lilac looked up at him only when she had all her things neatly packed in her bag.
He stilled, realizing she looked like she was about to go somewhere. “Where are you going?”
She frowned before inquiring quietly, “Didn’t…you come here because…you needed…a friend?”
It was his turn to blink, finding Lilac’s constant ability to surprise him more than a little disconcerting.
“Yes,” Nick said finally, doing his best to match Lilac’s serious tone. The way she spoke very carefully was too adorable, tempting him to smile. But at the same time it was a turn on, making him want to just pull her close for a kiss. “I did.”
In minutes, they were inside his car, its luxurious interior starting to feel familiar as well. The blast of air-conditioning was the only sound that broke the silence after Nick slammed his door shut, followed by the rumble of his car engine starting.
She tried not to be so very stiff but it was hard. Her mind was still reeling from the fact that he had sought her out when he was feeling troubled – and he had not denied it.
Nick Christakos needed her.
The thought was very, very unreal.
“Where should we go today?”
She tried thinking of a place that a billionaire who had seen and done everything would find refreshing, a place where he could just be Nick and not one of the world’s youngest CEOs.
Lilac bit her lip. “There is something…I like to do…when I feel down.”
Shop? Dine out? Fly abroad? Nick tried not to let his innate cynicism show as he said, “Whatever it is, I’m down with it.”
Half an hour later, Nick was wondering if he had made the right decision. He wasn’t sure either if he was appalled or amused because Lilac’s choice of place was one of the few wherein he was the one distinctly out of place.
Lilac had brought him to one of the city’s most popular gaming stations, with its second level lit with neon overhead lights, windows darkly tinted, and the sounds of cyber war filling the place. There were about fifty stations, all equipped with wide screen monitors, wireless keyboards, fast computers, and leather armchairs. To say the place was cramped was putting it mildly. His security team was no doubt already suffering from paranoid visions of worst case scenarios and strategizing like crazy about the safest possible exits.
The people around him were mostly men dressed in shirts and jeans. About half had dorky-looking glasses. The other half had goatees. All of them had their necks craned, heads swinging back and forth between him and his security team.
Nick had to ask. “You really like it here?” Before she could answer, people had already started shouting their greetings, some calling her name while others called her R.K.
He grimaced. “Forget I asked.”
A giggle escaped Lilac, the surprising but enchanting sound stirring something inside him that wasn’t just his cock.
As she led them to their assigned stations, he asked, “Why do they call you R.K.?” Her cheeks turned a faint color of pink. He was even more enchanted and aroused, last night’s disastrous meeting fading into the background.
“It…stands for Rurouni Kenshin,” Lilac admitted as they took their seats next to each other. His gaze remained blank after her answer, and she couldn’t help smiling at that. He really was so out of place here, and everyone knew it, judging by the way most people kept looking at them.
“RK is…my favorite anime. It’s about this…really cool wandering samurai and…” She trailed off, seeing that she wasn’t going anywhere with Nick. It was as if she could not imagine a grownup voluntarily watching Japanese cartoons. “I’ll…let you see it one day,” she said gently instead.
As Lilac showed Nick the controls and walked him through the objectives of the game, she kept waiting for Nick to demand that they go somewhere else. But he didn’t. Instead, he listened carefully to her explanation, frowning as if he was doing his best to memorize life’s most important lesson.
“Why,” he asked slowly, his gaze on the screen, “do they keep wielding their knives when they start running out of their base?”
“Mm…I guess…out of habit?” She watched Nick test the same action with his own character. And then he took off his pistol and started shooting.
Lilac gasped. “Wait. Nick…you might---”
“What the fuck, man?” the guy next to them exclaimed angrily as his character’s life points went down.
“---shoot…your own teammates,” she ended lamely. Behind them, his bodyguards were audibly doing their best to muffle their laughter.
Dark color stained Nick’s cheeks as he realized what he had just done. “Sorry,” he forced himself to mutter to Lilac before snapping his head back to glare at his security team. “Shut up or I’ll fire the two of you,” he warned them in Greek.
Lilac bent forward to peek at Nick’s face, worried at the curt tone he had used with his guards. “I’m…sorry,” she whispered. “I…forgot to tell you this game has friendly fire on.”
If anything, the frown on Nick’s face became even more pronounced. “It wasn’t your fault. It’s mine. But I’ll do my best to get the hang of this.”
She could see that he meant it, the way he was gazing at his screen and experimenting with the controls. For some reason, that only made her heart beat faster. Lilac mentally shook her head. Her heart needed reconfiguring. It wasn’t supposed to beat for the silliest things.
An hour later, Lilac nearly jumped in her seat when Nick suddenly lifted her headset. “You’re too good.” His whisper tickled her exposed ear.
And there, Lilac thought morosely, went her heartbeat once more. Even so, she couldn’t help the smile tugging her lips when she peeked at Nick and found him gazing at her screen, his lip curling when her mouse accidentally highlighted Nick’s own kill-death ratio.
Lilac’s record: 54 kills, 4 deaths.
Nick’s record: 2 kills, 23 deaths.
“I play like shit,” Nick muttered.
Lilac tried to suppress the laughter brimming on her lips as she clicked on exit to temporarily take herself out of the game. “No…you don’t.”
His blue eyes bored into her. “Yes. I do.”
The softest chuckle escaped as she said obediently, “Okay…you do.” Unaware of how her nervousness over stuttering disappeared whenever she was talking about something she enjoyed, Lilac added soothingly, “I…can teach you if you like.”
“You should have offered earlier.”
She relaxed even more, Nick’s grumbling retort making her lips twitch. “I…never thought someone like Nick Christakos would be bad at something.” Her head cocked to the side as a thoughtful expression crossed her face. “What…would others say if they find out…you’re badat Counterstrike? Perhaps…all you know how to play is…Farmville?”
He cursed, she laughed.
“You cheeky little imp,” he growled as she continued laughing.
Lilac made her eyes go wide. “Let me guess…you play Dragonvale, too?”
The amusement died on his face. With a small wave of his hand, his guards disappeared.
Suddenly, she felt conspicuously alone with Nick, which was a ridiculous thought since they were surrounded by other gamers. And then he started to speak.
“Right now, Lilac,” Nick said in a level voice that still made her tremble, “there’s only one thing I can think of playing.”
When her doll eyes widened even more, Nick swallowed back a groan, every i
nch of his body hardening with unfulfilled lust. “And if you know what’s good for you, try not to look at me like that.”
“Like…what?” And then she blinked.
Ah, well. It was as the Fates decreed.
Before Lilac could draw another breath, Nick had cupped her chin, lifting her face as his lips claimed hers. The touch of his lips was indescribably beautiful, gentle but possessive as it molded over hers, his arrogance and desire for her communicating itself as he took in her lower lip and nipped it. The kiss was heat, passion, lust, and need – and it was over before she could think about stopping it, over before she could decide if she wanted more.
This time, her eyes were wide with surprise and confusion.
Fuck. The effort it took not to haul Lilac against him and kiss her like his body was demanding made Nick tremble in his seat. “I’m doing my very best to remember that we’re friends here, Lilac, but if you keep looking at me like that, I will forget.” He caressed her face with his knuckles, his cock aching at the way she unconsciously swallowed and wetted her lips, the tiny dart of her pink tongue making him think of how it would feel to have her licking his entire body.
“And if you keep wetting your lips like that,” he warned in a low growl, “I’ll forget I’m trying to play nice, take you to the nearest room we can be private, and let your body know who its master is.”
He watched how her lips formed a silent gasp, and even that in itself was erotic.
With other women, Nick would have said something cruder and they would have loved it. But with Lilac, he couldn’t. Not now – not yet. She looked too fragile and even though he still ached to possess her, he wanted her to see he was trying…to be good, to be a friend like he had promised.
She pulled away, and he let her go, watching the silky lock of hair unwound from his fingers.
Nick wanted to curse when he saw a now-familiar expression of aloofness fall on Lilac’s face. Dio! What he would give just to know what went on in her mind every time she looked at him like he was not part of her world!
But he wasn’t, Nick reminded himself. And it was important she realized it early on, accepted that they were different and that this – this goddamn friendship of theirs – would be fucking doomed from the start if Lilac didn’t understand he wasn’t nice like her.